


The Gift of Forgetting

by Banonymous Split (VZG)



Category: Slender Man Mythos, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Horror, Prompt Fic, Psychological Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-23
Updated: 2012-10-23
Packaged: 2017-12-16 03:01:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/857010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VZG/pseuds/Banonymous%20Split
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As a child, Natasha is haunted and hunted by the Slender Man while being simultaneously subjected to memory-erasing and -modifying procedures.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Gift of Forgetting

**Author's Note:**

> I know very little of the Red Room from the comics, so I improvised.
> 
> This came from an avengerskink prompt asking for Slender Man fic of any sort. I don't normally do present tense or experimental-ish writing styles, but it seemed appropriate here.

She remembers—

_no she doesn't_

—she remembers seeing him — it? — for the first time when she was outside. She remembers the snow, because it was the first time she had seen it since they'd taken her in. Strolls outdoors weren't allowed very often, and never unchaperoned, but her caregiver—

_handler, abductor, tormenter_

—had stepped away, irresponsibly. She had started to run, had torn off her clothes in case they had tracking devices in them, and barreled into the woods, the freezing winds nipping at her bare skin. She didn't care, focused single-mindedly on escape.

She didn't realize what he was, then. She had seen a man-shape, darkly suited, and veered away from it sharply. She saw it again, and assumed it was simply another handler come to get her.

By the fourth time she realized she'd gone in a full circle, and that the man stalking her had no face. She stopped, stared into where his eyes were meant to be, and screamed.

She wasn't allowed out for over a year after that. It didn't stop him from coming, though. She'd catch sight of a long, long arm through a window, or see an impossibly tall shadow just around a corner, and wind up heavily sedated, drooling by the time she woke up and listening to a constantly repeating recording reminding her to behave.

She tried to tell someone, but they took it as any other outburst, paying her no mind and punishing her severely if she started to get violent—

_as she did, often_

—before sweeping up the mess with another mind-clearing—

_brainwashing_

—session.

She would forget, with their help. The nightmares would fade and so would other precious memories, her parents, her handlers, other girls being trained fading from existence as far she was concerned. She would forget, and then she would see him again, a long limb here or a silhouette there. And she would scream.

She convinced herself—

_was forced to believe_

—that it was all in her head, that she was dangerously unstable anyway and had made him up to represent all her living nightmares. He was always so far away, after all, always just a figure in the corner of her eye, or no more than a shadow that could otherwise be explained away.

She believed that to be true, in moment of clarity, until she was thirteen — until she woke up in the cramped, dark girls' dormitory and saw a featureless face staring at her from over the bed of one of her so-called sisters. She was too well-trained—

_too scared_

—to scream then, instead closing her eyes hard against his image and praying he would go away.

It was the first— _and last_ —time she would pray in that place. She began praying out loud as paper-dry fingertips touched her face, louder and louder until one of the other girls woke up and yelled.

She was punished very, very severely for wetting the bed. It never happened again, and she instead grew used to seeing him when she woke at night.

They thought they'd damaged her beyond repair, when she began forgetting entire missions, entire sessions with them, no longer at their will. There were things they could not force her to remember, things she lost forever, only retaining a feeling of uneasiness about the times when her mind went blank.

They thought the lack of sleep was a success, at first, thought they'd managed to train her into a new height of being _slavery_. When she stopped sleeping altogether, save short, fitful bursts mostly achieved on her feet, they realized something _something else_ was wrong. Then the coughing started, and she was quarantined, left in solitary confinement with no one _but him_ except the doctors and nurses. Her fits _warnings_ became more frequent, left her writhing _knowing_ on her bed until she was strapped down _left as bait_.

But they would still send her out. She would stop coughing on assignments, after all, and as long as the objective _murder was_ completed, what did her own memory loss matter?

That stance lasted with them until they needed her to bring back photographic evidence, and there was none. The film would be gone _taken_ and she'd be punished. They sent others with her to document her work, only for the pictures _evidence, he's there_ to come back to them distorted, blurry or dark and always unusable.

The figured it was her _it was him_ and punished her again, but they were growing fearful _for the wrong reasons always the wrong reasons_. They believed she was tricking them, had somehow managed to retain enough of herself to defy them while working, had tainted the photos _the proof_.

That session _brain-washing torture murdering her spirit ripping her to shreds_ was the most intense _painful horrible she cried for days_ she would ever experience. By the end of it she was cold _numb_ and ruthless _vengeful_ and finally, finally...

She forgot.

She forgot it all so thoroughly that she couldn't remember even being afraid, much less the reason she should be. They were happy, and she was as close to pleased as she would come, before meeting Clint. She spilled blood and pickpocketed information, clenched hearts in her fist and wrung them clean of answers. She was powerful, and even if it wasn't much, she was allowed some freedom. She could live alone, could form some vaguely relationship-like bonds with those around her, could have shades of opinions of her own.

And then she was held at arrow-point and her heart burst out of her throat. It showed its effects slowly, but she was sure that was what happened in that moment. She could feel more intensely, even her own skin seeming like new to her, and eventually her mind opened itself, let her form an identity that was her own.

She went with him.

She passed years in what she thought of as bliss. Comparatively, it was; at times she could forget the blood on her hands, or the circumstances of her childhood. Although she eventually learned that she was not a ballerina, that becoming an assassin had never been her choice, she could let the information slide away, because she had a self of her own, something they didn't create and couldn't take away.

And she had Clint, who, as long as she could help it, they would never touch.

But she had forgotten, couldn't remember that there were other things in life to fear than men with bright lights and scalpels, things that could make her shake besides a kindly Dr. Jekyll who became an enormous green Mr. Hyde. She had forgotten, but he reminded her.

They were staying in Stark's tower, still unsure as to whether it might be a permanent home or temporary retreat, when Clint shakily told her that he'd seen the figure of a man in the wreckage left behind by their latest fight to save the world. Before she could ask what it was about that that was unusual, how that might make his voice waver and stop, he told her about the tentacles that had curled out from his back, the way his arms had seemed too long and how he couldn't make out any features on his face.

Before she could even remember enough to be scared, she was sobbing, holding him to her. They trembled together; he didn't need to be told that anything that could affect her so was something to truly be frightened _terrified_ of.

She called for help, screaming it, until they came running, and demanded help, but could not specify what for, her mind sending her flashes of pain, bulbs of fear and distress, stabbing vicious memories into her consciousness and leaving her tongue folded in on itself, unable to articulate any of it _do not speak of it do not make it real_. Clint tried to explain, but he didn't know _didn't have the fear_ how to make them understand, either. They thought she was crazy _crazy but right_ and left him to care for her.

She called on Thor, but even he could not understand her. She begged for his hammer _for him or herself_ but he refused, asking for a location, a name, anything concrete, but there was nothing she could give him _nothing he would allow her to know_.

She stopped sleeping. Clint started carrying a small camera, but nothing ever came back. He stopped sleeping, too, and finally _finally_ the others got worried _but not enough never scared enough_.

They sent him to a regular doctor, but it wasn't enough for her _never could be not after_. She didn't know it was coming _just like him oh god how could they_ when she was taken by Maria _just like them just like him_ into a room of white _his flesh is so white_ with a chair _so tall like him_ and _he was there_ a screen _he was in the static_ , where they _broke her again did it all over_ made her _not again it'll only start over please_ —

forget.

She does not remember him.


End file.
